Blaze set by 3-year-old boy leaves family homeless

A 3-year-old boy set fire to a mattress Tuesday in West Lubbock, a fire official said, leaving himself and seven other family members homeless.

The blaze began about 3:10 p.m. after the boy used a lighter to set a bed on fire, District Fire Chief Lynn Smith said. All eight residents were home during the time of the blaze, but no one was injured.

Firefighters extinguished the flames within 20 minutes, but the house sustained at least $40,000 in damage, Smith said.

Robbie Murphy, 52, lived in the house with her three adult children and their four young children.

She said her young grandson was alone in a bedroom when the fire started.

"Somebody said 'I smell something' and I asked (my grandson) 'What are you doing?' and I looked and the mattress was on fire," Murphy said. "It got so dark in there with all the smoke."

Murphy said she and her adult children hustled to get the younger family members out of the home at 7301 25th Street.

"You're big, you can get out pretty good, but those little ones," she said. "That's what we were trying to do is get the babies out."

Smith said the Fire Department contacted the Red Cross to help locate temporary housing for Murphy's family. Their home was owned by Murphy's parents and was uninsured.

The home sustained heavy fire damage to one of four bedrooms and the attic. The rest of the home received smoke and heat damage, Smith said.

Fire Capt. Marlin Hamilton said an estimated 50 percent of fires intentionally set across the nation are caused by juveniles.

"Locally we don't have statistics," Hamilton said. "When you consider this, when you consider all fires, Dumpster fires, grass fires, a good many of those are set by juveniles."

Smith said juveniles often set fires because they're unsupervised, want attention or have family problems.

"It's the unknown, the excitement of fire, and kids just don't realize the magnitude of how fast it could spread," he said. "The lucky thing here is that (no one) was killed."

The Fire Department provides a voluntary fire safety program to juveniles and their families. Murphy said she plans to take her grandson to the Fire Marshal's Office to attend the program.